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From bullet trains to active volcanoes, travel guide publisher Lonely Planet has named its top new experiences for 2016. Consisting entirely of newly-opened or yet-to-open attractions, the list gives a peak at 31 experiences, ranging from extreme adventure challenges, such as zip-lining in Cuba’s Valle de Viñales, to cultural venues, including the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

Topping the list is the Center for Extreme Tourism in Chinandega, Nicaragua, which opened in October 2015, and is a new ecotourism facility to support those who want to climb the country’s tallest active volcano and explore the San Cristóbal volcano natural reserve.

Japan’s new bullet train route is second: the Tokyo to Hakodate line is an 850km, four-hour journey connecting the capital to the country’s most northernmost island, Hokkaido, famous for its high-quality seafood, skiing and hot springs.

In third place is Rwanda’s Akagera national park, where, last summer, lions were reintroduced after 15 years. This year, as the pride establishes itself in its new territory, it will be easier for visitors to track the lions on safari.

Other new experiences on the list include the world’s first Dr Suess Museum in Springfield, Massachusetts; immersing yourself in desert flowers at the Field of Light installation at Uluru, Australia; and walking on water at the Floating Piers art installation on Italy’s Lake Iseo.

In all mythic, transformational trips—acid, ayahuasca, Mars or across the river Styx—the voyagers must, at some point, face down their deepest fears. For expeditions into Antarctica, the most deeply strange place on Earth, the Drake Passage is where that happens.

This tumultuous realm—where the Pacific and Atlantic oceans converge at a latitude where water unimpeded by land flows in a continuous circle around the globe—was first sailed by Sir Francis Drake, the storied 16th-century English naval explorer. Winds and swells in the passage are commonly “hurricane” on the Beaufort scale. Its harrowing reputation prompted a 19th-century theory that the Drake Passage was a planetary drain leading to the South Pole, a notion Edgar Allan Poe used to terrifying effect in his short story “MS. Found in a Bottle,” in which a cargo ship passenger narrates the destruction of his vessel and the events before his death.

The Drake is not a drain, but it has sucked down more than 1,000 ships and countless sailors in the four centuries since men started crossing it, lured by dreams of ice and adventure. According to lore, in 1914 over 5,000 adventure seekers responded to an ad that Ernest Shackleton placed in a London newspaper for something called the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition: “Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.” The text of that advertisement might be a myth, but what is certain truth is that Shackleton handpicked 28 applicants from a large and eager pool to accompany him. They, plus packs of sled dogs and a ship’s cat, set sail from Plymouth on August 8, 1914, on a ship called theEndurance, aiming to become the first men to traverse Antarctica on foot.

Paris attacks

Belgian prosecutors believe they may have found a Brussels apartment where one of the Paris jihadists hid after the 13 November attacks.

Police found traces of explosives and a fingerprint of fugitive Salah Abdeslam in an apartment in the Schaerbeek district.

The apartment had been rented in a false name, that might have been used by a person already in custody.

Islamic State (IS) suicide attackers killed 130 people in the attacks.

The Belgian federal prosecutor's office said that traces of the explosive TATP (acetone peroxide) and three handmade belts that might be used to transport explosives were found in the raid on 10 December in Rue Berge.

Police are still searching for Abdeslam, 26. They believe he took part in the attacks before contacting friends in Belgium to drive him back over the border to Brussels. A French national, he was born in Brussels.

Just hours after the attacks French police pulled over his VW Golf car near Belgium, but then let him travel on in the car with two others.

He is believed to have rented a VW Polo car in Belgium, which was later found near the Bataclan concert hall in Paris where 89 people were killed. But he also rented a Renault Clio and reserved two hotel rooms outside Paris before the attacks.

His precise role in the attacks themselves is unclear, although his brother Brahim blew himself up. Salah Abdeslam is thought to have played a logistical role.